Hospitality: The Andy Warhol Museum
Make death fun, the Warhol way.
The Stakes
Andy Warhol: Vanitas explores the theme of mortality. And people don’t love thinking about death. So we created a way to broach the topic of death in a way that was infused with Andy Warhol’s irreverence and playfulness.
The Friction
Most people avoid confronting death. It’s a subject that sparks anxiety, not creativity. To make Vanitas resonate beyond the museum walls, The Warhol needed to dismantle that fear, reframing death not as an ending, but as a final opportunity for creative self expression.
The Shift
BarkleyOKRP worked with The Andy Warhol Museum to create The Death Kit, tools to help people “seize the decay.” Each kit includes a guide to help excavate the unique parts of one’s personality to include in writing a eulogy, creative alternatives to “sending flowers,” and a poster of inventive casket hand poses.
The idea behind the launch was to reimagine the internet’s obsession with unboxing videos as “the only unboxing that prepares you for your eventual wooden boxing.” Influencers were invited to unbox the kits on social media, transforming a familiar format into a conversation about life, creativity, and the humor in our shared mortality.
